Riddle me this: If Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have smoking gun evidence of a deep-state conspiracy that threatens American democracy itself, wouldn't they be doing more than playing silly hashtag games, such as #ReleasetheMemo? Hint: The answer is yes. If this were a serious undertaking, congressional investigators would be collaborating with the Department of Justice, FBI and relevant Senate committees to save America from the threat within. But we're no longer dealing in the realm of facts and reason when it comes to grave matters of security and justice. We are, at Donald Trump's behest, fully engulfed in a narrative explicitly designed to impugn and destroy the credibility of the law enforcement agency tasked with investigating the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia during the 2016 election.

The #ReleasetheMemo campaign bears all the classic hallmarks of a uniquely Trumpian ruse. Throughout his career as a New York real estate mogul and media star Trump has stumbled upon a foolproof way of trapping people into his web of lies. He always begins by casting vague aspersions about his target, in this case, the law enforcement networks investigating him. Recall how news reports of the now well-known and controversial dossier prompted him to ask, "Are we living in Nazi Germany?" Or how he compared the surveillance of campaign associates, such as Paul Manafort and Carter Page, to "McCarthyism" and "Nixon/Watergate." Never mind that his actions more closely resemble those of Nixon during Watergate than anything undertaken those investigating him. Trump wanted his followers to believe one thing and one thing only: A massive conspiracy was underfoot to undermine his presidency, and he's been peddling this particular theory for well over a year now.